When To Change Psychologist? How To Know If You Are Doing Well With Your Therapist
In this article we reflect on that moment when a person has doubts about whether their therapeutic process is being sufficiently satisfactory, as well as the reasons and possible solutions after this assessment.
Many people consider making an appointment with a psychologist with many doubts such as: will it be what I need? Can they help me? How can I find a suitable professional for me? etc. Once this first moment of doubts and uncertainty has passed, we manage to find the person who we think can help us and we begin the sessions. After a while, new doubts may arise, in fact, it is very healthy for them to appear: is the therapy helping me? Am I making progress? Is it possible that after the first progress the process has stagnated? etc. In short, what it is about is making a assessment of the relevance of continuing to do psychotherapy and, if applicable, whether to continue doing it with the same person.
How do I know if I should continue with my psychologist?
As I said, this need to assess the situation, as long as it is not a constant, it is healthy and convenient, and, at the same time, it is not interesting to get too entangled in it. The good news is that the person who goes to therapy has the last word, which does not prevent the psychologist from also accompanying them in clarifying these issues.
First of all, it is worth clarifying the question of if we want to continue attending psychotherapy sessions This will depend, fundamentally, on the change we have experienced since we requested the first appointment. In this sense, we can ask ourselves the following questions: what has changed in me since I started therapy? Do I still need professional help to face the difficulties that led me to make the first appointment? Did the changes occur only during the First sessions or do they happen with a certain regularity? Have other issues arise throughout the process that motivate me to continue with the psychotherapeutic process? With what disposition do I go to the sessions? What can motivate this disposition? , etc.
It is interesting that these questions, in addition to serving for personal reflection, are posed openly in the session, which will favor communication and the bond with the professional, and, where appropriate, can promote appropriate changes in the therapeutic process. If not, it can be an important piece of information that gives us a clue that something is not right.
Once these questions have been answered, we may see clearly that the process is being reasonably satisfactory in terms of its results and we may conclude that it is most convenient to maintain the current dynamic, scheduling a future evaluation of the situation for later. And it is also possible that the answers to these questions will incline us to think we need a change the following situations may occur:
We come to the conclusion that we have achieved the therapeutic change we needed or, at least, an acceptable level of said change. From this moment, we can assess whether we want to continue in a process of personal growth with professional support or if, on the contrary, the best thing for us is to put an end (at least for the moment) to the therapeutic process.
We discovered that we are not perceiving a sufficiently satisfactory change, either from the beginning of the process or from a certain moment (after some first sessions in which there was one, for example). In this case, it is advisable to share the experience with the psychologist, so that we can contrast our perceptions with theirs. In short, it is now a matter of assessing what decision we are going to make in this regard. Maybe change something in the therapeutic process, maybe change professionals, maybe suspend the process until we can see more clearly what we need and what is hindering or preventing the desired change.
Be that as it may, the most important thing throughout the entire therapeutic process (and its completion is nothing more than a part of it), is that the person who comes to the consultation be the protagonist of the process This implies that it is your decision to start and end the therapy, as well as to modify the frequency of the meetings (as long as said frequency is also consistent with the therapist’s framework). Likewise, it implies that the person is responsible for his or her own change process and, therefore, who must make decisions about it. One of these decisions, of course, may be to change professionals if you are not satisfied with the support provided by your current therapist.
If the psychologist is honest, he/she will help the person make the best decisions for their life, without directing them towards any objective, process or approach of their own and, at the same time, committing to the person to accompany them to clarify what your needs are and what is the best way to satisfy them regardless of the interests, values or points of view of the professional.
